


Delivery Week

by SleepyKalena



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Crunch time is a bitch, Entertainment Industry AU, F/F, F/M, Meet-Cute, but at least they have each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:01:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22692217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyKalena/pseuds/SleepyKalena
Summary: Jyn Erso was clearly way in over her head when she volunteered to step up and do a job that literally wasn't in her job description. It seemed like a good idea at the time, wanting to climb the industry ladder, but with a whoppingtwo-hundred and twenty-threeshots to color correct in only three days, it quickly became clear that she bit off more than she could chew. The stakes were high, and so was her stress.She could scream. She really could- the room she's been confined toissound-proofed, after all. But when an equally stressed, haggard stranger mistakenly walks in on her assigned room, things start to get less stressful. Or at least just a tiny bit- the animation industry is maddening.But at least they've got each other.
Relationships: Amilyn Holdo/Leia Organa, Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 67
Kudos: 100





	1. Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an actual meet-cute that happened at work.
> 
> I know there are plenty of corporate setting AUs in this fandom, but I think this is the only one that's an entertainment industry AU, so I hope y'all enjoy my twist on things!
> 
> Also. There's A LOT of jargon in here for accuracy's sake. I've created [this handy glossary](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1095927) in hopes that it'll help explain the words being thrown around.

Two-hundred and twenty-three shots.

The number was a lot of letters to spell out in one’s head.

It was also a lot of footage for Jyn to color correct.

She sat alone in the dark room, in front of two large, bright computer monitors with an even larger TV propped up on the wall above her. The only sounds in the room were the frantic clicking of her mouse and the poppy music blasting through her headphones to keep her distracted from the stress. Despite her best efforts, her heartrate ticked up just a little every time she saw looked at the clock on the upper-right of her screen.

 _It’s only Tuesday_ , she told herself, trying to keep her breath even and calm herself so that she could keep going.

Yes, it was only Tuesday, and yet on this “blessed” week known as “Delivery Week”, Jyn had to go through all _two-hundred and twenty-three shots_ of animated footage, color correct each of them, and get them approved by the directors before midday Friday.

And then the _real_ slog would begin.

Three days sounded like plenty of time, but as the day neared 2 pm, she leaned back on her chair and looked up at the ceiling, neatly black and lined with sound-proofing material, and wondered if the room was reinforced enough to scream in frustration.

* * *

>   
> “You’ll be in good hands with Baze when he goes through the key shots with you,” her producer told her the previous morning. “And the plugin is easy to use; you’re a fast worker, so I’m sure you’ll make quick work of it after you shadow him for a few hours.”
> 
> Jyn knew it was meant to be a comforting statement, one of his classic means of trying to downplay the stress of the situation, but with delivery day drawing near, the words were anything _but_ comforting. Rather, it sounded as though there was an expectation for her to finish this in one sitting, even if she knew he didn’t mean it to sound that way.
> 
> She rapped her fingers on the massive work desk while waiting for Baze to arrive. Meeting with the art director for the first time felt like a coin-toss; her producers and showrunners sang endless praises of the great Baze Malbus, but according to Bodhi and Amilyn, who (unlike Jyn) already had a year under their belt with Starbird Studios, Baze was scrutinizing, at times ruthless towards the artists. Even Amilyn, ever the energetically whimsical production coordinator, seemed to be rattled enough from those experiences that she made a strong effort to brush up on what little Mandarin she managed to remember from high school to better bond with him and remain on his good side. Bodhi, meanwhile, opted to zip his lips and resort to nodding, terrified of stuttering out of nervousness around Baze’s domineering presence.
> 
> And, _wow indeed_ , the man looked like a giant against the very doorframe that made her appear almost mouse-like.
> 
> “The whole point of applying this color correction is to make sure all the shots look consistent and pretty across the board,” Baze explained as he sat down and settled into the work station after a quick exchange of formalities. His voice was gruff, as though he’d been in the TV industry for far too long to care about sounding chipper and upbeat like Jyn’s producer, but there was a kindness to it as he spoke slowly and carefully, glancing at Jyn out of the corner of his eye to make sure she was paying attention. His black wavy hair was longer than she had imagined, edging just past his shoulders with shy streaks of grey throughout. It wasn’t necessarily messy, but it was also clear he hadn’t bothered to comb his hair when he rolled out of bed in the morning. He dressed plainly- a weathered red shirt and relaxed jeans. Indeed, this was the attire of someone so high up the ladder that his dress code could afford to be as casual as it was.
> 
> She was determined to be diligent and make a good impression, but truth be told, it was hard to jot down notes about this newfangled plugin she’d never heard about while also watching him work. This might have been her second professional job, but it was definitely her first gig at a well-known company, and she wasn’t going to flush it down the drain because the art director thought poorly of her.
> 
> _You’re green talent_ , she told herself. _Don’t fuck it up and fall off the tree to rot._
> 
> Baze nodded idly to himself as he skimmed the episode for scenes he wanted to pick out. “I’m going to mark my key shots in this mango color; use this as a reference for how you’ll apply the color correction to all related shots,” he instructed. “We’re not going to get too fancy here, but there’s an aesthetic that the director wants, so you’ll want to pay attention to what I do and why I do them.”
> 
> Jyn noticed that he stopped looking at her through his peripheral vision; perhaps he trusted that she was going to keep taking notes? It was a relief, at any rate- she hated it when people stared at her, and she was lucky that her position meant working in private rooms like the one she and Baze were in, as opposed to the other artists stuck in what they called “the bullpen”.
> 
> Suddenly, he stopped clicking. He squinted, eyes scanning the sequence in front of him, then hit a button on the keyboard to zoom out and get a full view of the entire project.
> 
> “Where are the rest of the shots?” he asked, his voice darkening.
> 
> She gulped; this was _exactly_ what she was worried about. The lack of shots really weren’t her fault- the whole production was just behind. On delivery week. When everything was supposed to be ready for her (and, by extension, Baze) to work with.
> 
> The odds were insurmountable, or at least Jyn certainly felt that it was.
> 
> “I’m not sure, actually,” she admitted, remaining as monotonous as possible to hide the inner jitters. “I don’t even know if the comp artists created a version of those missing shots. These were just the ones they dropped in for me to put in the episode so far, so-“
> 
> “I can’t work with this episode when we’re missing this much,” he said with a scowl. “You’re telling me that we don’t even have vee-ones of these other shots? This is going to delay things for you. When is D-Day?”
> 
> Jyn still wasn’t used to using that term, but she had to admit that the studio had a rather interesting sense of gallows humor about delivery days.
> 
> “Erm, this Friday, sir.”
> 
> Baze looked at her with quizzical amusement. “Sir?”
> 
> “I’m not sure what else to call you,” she responded sheepishly.
> 
> He blinked once, then twice, completely dumbfounded by the words coming out of her mouth, but before she could mentally shoot herself in the foot for her stupidity, Baze instead threw his head back in hearty laughter, causing her to tense up even further.
> 
> Was this it? Was she so supremely idiotic that she wasn’t going to be kicked out of the studio for her incompetence, but rather _laughed out_?
> 
> “I like you,” he said finally, coming down from his high, and Jyn hid her sigh of relief as she unclenched at last.
> 
> “They picked a good editor for this project,” Baze remarked.
> 
> “Actually, sir, assistant editor,” she corrected him.
> 
> He furrowed his brows. “Why did they send an assistant editor to do color corrections?”
> 
> “Do you want the immediate answer, or the actual answer?”
> 
> He chuckled in disbelief at her response. She assumed, then, that he wanted both explanations.
> 
> “The editor is back in our editing bay trying to finish up one of our animatics, which delivers on the same day as this episode. But the actual answer is that the project supposedly doesn’t have enough money to afford two editors. So the compromise was to hire an assistant editor in lieu of two editors, sir.”
> 
> Baze closed his eyes and sighed slowly, and Jyn felt a huge relief wash over her as she recognized that it was an empathetic sigh, as though he was taking a breath on her behalf more than out of disdain towards her.
> 
> “Yeah, that’s a mess,” he said, turning back to the computer to scan through the shots again for more key shots, clearly choosing to forego any comments about the production she’d unwittingly signed on to.
> 
> “You’re doing an editor’s job, you know.” The disappointment was clear in his matter-of-fact statement, but she knew it wasn’t directed at her so much as it was directed at her situation.
> 
> She pursed her lips. “I’ve been told that already, sir. By the editor.”
> 
> “Drop the ‘sir’- makes me feel old,” he grumbled.
> 
> Jyn let out a quick, breathy laugh. “Sorry, sir- I mean, Baze.”
> 
> She continued to watch him pick out key shots until he finally moved on to load the plugin for color correction.
> 
> “Have you done color correction before?” he asked suddenly.
> 
> “Nope, this is my first time,” she responded.
> 
> He nodded, but said nothing.
> 
> “Actually,” she continued, “this is only my second gig in the field; the editor in my last job handled the color correction, but he used _Raddus_ instead of this.”
> 
> “Ah yes, the _Raddus Profundity_ ,” he nodded with a smile. “Good software, that. Steep learning curve, though. Luckily the _Organa Tantive_ plugin is a lot easier to use right out of the box. Get ready to take notes.”
> 
> Baze, she noticed with the passing minutes, was not quite how Bodhi and Amilyn described him, nor was he quite as grandiose as her producer and directors made him out to be. The outwardly grumpy, gruff, even-toned man was patient with her, filling the room with a comforting calmness.
> 
> Then, in a moment of fatigue and vulnerability, just as her eyes were beginning to droop from the sleepy lunchtime haze, she dared to ask:
> 
> “Was I dumb for volunteering for this if it isn’t even in my job description?”
> 
> She couldn’t think of a more succinct way to ask the question, but her voice hung in the air with a nuance that she hoped he’d pick up.
> 
> Baze appeared distracted as he continued to click away with his color corrections, dragging sliders this way and that, but he spoke calmly and carefully with a meaningful weight to his words: “It’s easy to think that if it’s not in your job description, you shouldn’t ever do it.
> 
> “But sometimes, people are needed to get things done when no one else is around to do it. And people- good people- tend to remember the ones that stuck around when things go bad, or even just a little crunchy. I’ve found that the ones who stuck around go on to have lucrative careers later down the line.”
> 
> Jyn nodded slowly, taking in the advice.
> 
> “That’s not to say you should volunteer like this _all_ the time,” he added. “You’d be foolish to stretch yourself so thin that you render yourself use _less_ rather than use _ful_. But if you’re able to do it, then definitely do it. Even if you don’t carry the title, you can carry the reputation with the impact you leave behind, however small it can seem.”
> 
> They were sage words. _This_ , she thought to herself, was probably part of why Baze was the art director for nearly all the productions at Starbird Studios. The task ahead of her was sure to be daunting, but she nevertheless felt soothed at the silver lining he provided her.
> 
> She was glad to have met him.
> 
> “You ask smart questions, Jyn,” he said after a time, finally rolling back on his chair and standing up to stretch. She could hear tiny cracks along his spine as he leaned back, and he sighed in satisfaction. “I can already tell that you’re on a clear path. I doubt I’ll need to check up on your progress when you propagate these color corrections onto the other shots, so I’ll leave you to use the rest of our reserved time to do your thing. Send me a message if you need help with anything.”
> 
> “Thanks for everything, Baze,” she grinned. “Hopefully I won’t need to call on you.”
> 
> There was a hint of a smirk on his face as he opened the door. “No, I don’t believe you’ll need to.”

* * *

Amilyn Holdo: How was the color correction session yesterday? Is Baze super intimidating or what?

Jyn Erso: He was at first, but only because he was pissed about not having all the v01s ready for him to work with.

Amilyn Holdo: …yeah I had a feeling he wasn’t gonna be too keen on that.

Jyn Erso: Nice the rest of the way though. Super patient. He’s finished working on the key shots though, so I’ve got the entire edit by to myself for the rest of the booked time here.

Amilyn Holdo: Did you eat lunch yet?

Jyn Erso: …no

Amilyn Holdo: Thought so- you didn’t come back to our floor to have lunch with us. Did you even stop by our floor at all today?

Jyn Erso: Nope, went straight to _Alderaan_.

Amilyn Holdo: How you liking that edit bay?

Jyn Erso: It’s comfier than _Hoth_ , that’s for sure. Just not a fan of the fact that I have to stare at this brightass monitor next to me for color corrections.

Amilyn Holdo: But you don’t have a choice, do you :(

Jyn Erso: Nope, none of the monitors in _Yavin IV_ are color-calibrated. Plus I don’t have the _Tantive_ plugin installed. I want to send a support ticket to Keitu, but I know he’s busy trying to figure out why our comp artists STILL don’t have the proper plugins installed for their renders.

Amilyn Holdo: Sigh. Please have lunch at some point. You don’t want to stay holed up in _Alderaan_ all day. Get some air and some steps or something!

Jyn Erso: No time.

Amilyn Holdo: EAT.

Jyn was about to write a witty response to Amilyn’s overenthusiastic demands when the door opened and an unfamiliar man walked in, catching her off-guard. The tall stranger’s rather gangly legs swung with purpose as he walked up to her with an expectant look on his face.

Who _was_ this guy?

“Hi,” the stranger said casually, shifting his weight to better support the laptop and notepad he was cradling in his arm. Much like Baze, this man’s equally dark hair seemed to imply that he also didn’t bother to comb his hair upon waking. Though, if she tilted her head the right way, she supposed it was more “fashionably messy”, an aesthetic that very few in the studio (let alone her line of work) could actually pull off. The scruff on his face was more neatly managed than the hair on his head, but not by much. She saw his facial hair creep down past his jawline and along his neck, and, judging by how his hair covered half his ears, it was clear that it’d been a while since his last haircut. And, based on his slightly slouched posture, Jyn guessed that behind his brightly alert eyes the man was just as fatigued as she was.

“Um, hi?” Jyn responded slowly, confusion clearly written on her face.

The stranger continued to stare expectantly, as though she was supposed to be cued in on something, except she had absolutely _no_ idea as to what he was even here for.

“Hang on,” the stranger said suddenly, his long eyelashes fluttering as a lightbulb lit up in his mind. “You’re…Jyn, right? Working on that one show… _Bombad_ , was it?”

She nodded. “And you are…?”

“Oh! I’m sorry,” the stranger responded, and he set his things down at the end of her work station to hold out a hand to shake. “Cassian. From _Tornado_?”

She’d heard of the _Tornado_ project through her producer, but only because he was the line producer on both shows. In fact, it was due to that link that Jyn had been given a few tasks here and there to help out their production, but she knew very little about the team otherwise. If she remembered correctly, however, this Cassian guy was _Tornado’s_ project manager.

Jyn stood up to shake his hand. “Yes, right- _Tornado_ ,” she repeated. “The fancy project that gets its own secret code name.”

He chuckled. “It’s not as fancy as it sounds, trust me.”

 _Maybe not in the grand scheme of things,_ she thought, but it didn’t change the fact that she was shaking the hand of someone with enough clout in the studio to partake in something so high-caliber. “What brings you here?”

Cassian fished his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen briefly. “Um, are you wrapping up on your work here? D-Day’s around the corner for us and we have this room booked for dailies in a few minutes, so now would be a great time to save your files.”

“Er…” Her lashes fluttered at the flurry of information he just dropped on her. “I thought I had _Alderaan_ for the whole day.”

He blinked back, equally confused. “That can’t be right. Says here on my calendar that _Tornado_ ’s holding dailies here in _Alderaan_ at two-thir…wait.”

Cassian pulled out his phone. “Huh. Our producer double-booked us for this edit bay.”

Jyn’s eyes widened. How was she going to finish working on her shots now? Dailies for _Bombad_ typically exceeded 90 minutes- how long would _Tornado_ dailies be?

“Hey guys!” their producer chimed in on cue as he opened the door and popped his head in. He glanced at Cassian. “Cassian, so sorry about this- I know we were supposed to have dailies in here for _Tornado_ , but turns out Jyn doesn’t have _Tantive_ installed on her computer in _Yavin IV_ , so I had to book her for _Alderaan_ and overwrote your time in here.”

“Well, that’s no good,” Cassian frowned. “Where are we going to hold _our_ dailies? All the other conference rooms and major edit bays are taken.”

“That’s actually what I came in here for!” the producer responded brightly. “I asked Leia if we could move our _Tornado_ dailies to her _Endor_ edit bay. She’s waiting for us to head over so you can look over the episodes we gotta deliver.”

Cassian ran a hand through his hair and ruffled it. He bobbed his head, as if he were trying to convince himself to be on board with the sudden change. Finally, he gave a sure nod. “Yeah. Sounds workable. Thanks for letting me know.”

As their producer left the room and the door closed behind him, Cassian let out a huge sigh.

“Sorry about that, Jyn- seems like we’re just all over the place in this studio, aren’t we?”

The whirlwind of emotion and stress she just went through in the last 5 minutes drained her, and she could only respond with a tired smile and a singular nod.

Cassian stared past her toward her dual monitors, then upwards at the large TV hung on the wall. “Color correct? So it’s delivery week for you too, huh?”

She nodded. “It’s my first time doing color correct, so it’s a bit much to handle, but I think I can get it tackled in time for…delivery day.” Nope, it still felt weird to call it “D-Day”.

He tilted his head and glanced at her curiously. “Wait a second, aren’t you just an assistant editor?”

There it was again, yet _another_ reminder that she’d unwittingly signed up for something without even raising a negotiation for a title change or a pay bump. Jyn was about ready to flip a table. Instead of responding verbally, she pursed her lips and nodded in resignation.

But where Jyn expected a look of pity, Cassian instead beamed. “That’s really cool! They’re letting you do advanced stuff even as an assistant.”

Well, that was certainly one way of putting it. Still, it was hard to accept that optimism when all those reminders hung in the back of her mind.

Her eyeroll must have been _that_ obvious, because the glint in Cassian’s eyes faded. “But you’re still an assistant editor,” he repeated, finally understanding her visible frustration.

She tried to shrug it off. “It’s too late to ask for more money in exchange for this, so I’ll just be grinding away at this for the next 10 episodes and hope for something better in the future.”

“Look,” he said, leaning against the work station and looking at her earnestly. “I’ve been told that _Bombad_ ’s production has consistently been…” his eyes drifted to the side as he searched for a way to sugarcoat things. “…a bit of a mess.”

Jyn scoffed. It wasn’t so much sugarcoating as it was dumping several kilos of sugar on the situation.

“But with the skillset you’re developing, we’d be foolish not to find a new project for you to work on, and you can throw this on the table when you negotiate a much higher rate,” he said, gesturing to the monitors. “And if we _are_ that foolish, the next studio to pick you up would be lucky to have you.”

 _Easy for him to say,_ she thought. A guy like Cassian had been around the block; judging by their perceived age gap, the man had enough experience to talk about negotiations and new contracts like it was something that could be conjured out of thin air. But for someone like her, the odds were slimmer both from a lack of experience and shallow networking. And, even if one looked past that, Jyn wasn’t a fool- everyone around here knew that the best chances at getting a job in the industry was by knowing someone who could set them up with someone else searching for a new hire. It just so happened that most of those someones and someone elses comprised of the very people that appeared more like Cassian than herself.

“Hey,” he said, trying to recapture her attention. Cassian dipped his head slightly, leaning in just a touch closer to her. It was then that she noticed a strong conviction in his voice, wrapping around her like a warm coat, and Jyn’s heart began to race.

“I’ve seen that shock before. I’ve _had_ that shock before. But I believe in you. You know you’re doing a good job if they’re trusting you with this.” His eyes were even darker than the room they were in, but the dim spotlight over the work station revealed warm, comforting embers that caused her face to warm up.

What did _he_ know? She was hired from the outside, and they’d never actually worked together. It was a line, something scripted, a generic statement meant to bring anyone back up on their feet…and yet…

Her lashes fluttered again, causing her blush to deepen, this time in embarrassment at how flustered she became. It wasn’t often she reacted this way, most especially not to anyone working in her field. But there was something about the kindness and the depth of his stare that made her think that perhaps it wasn’t a line, and that perhaps he truly believed in her.

Perhaps, then, this brand of sure-footed optimism was why her producer chose Cassian to lead the high-profile _Tornado_ project.

Cassian’s lashes fluttered as well, mirroring her own reaction. “Sorry,” he said, taking a step back and ruffling his hair again. Was this a nervous tic for him? “I’ll leave you to your work. But I’m sure I’ll see you again- you’re on our floor to work on color correction the whole week, right?” he asked, picking up his belongings.

Jyn nodded slowly, concentrating her efforts to cool her face down using sheer willpower.

It wasn’t working- her face was still running hot.

“I’m sure we’ll bump into each other again, Jyn,” he said with a friendly grin, and her heart raced again. Even as the door shut behind him and Jyn was back in the quiet, dark confines of the _Alderaan_ editing bay, her heart refused to slow down, and she could almost swear that, if not for the sound-proofing, everyone on the other side of the walls would be able to hear it thumping loudly against her chest.

Slowly, she swiveled her chair back to face the monitors, and her heart sank a little when reality dragged her back to focus on the rest of her…

One-hundred and ninety-eight shots.

It was 2:40 pm on the Tuesday of delivery week, and Jyn Erso _still_ had to color correct 198 more shots by midday Friday.

_“You know you’re doing a good job if they’re trusting you with this.”_

Whether or not Cassian’s words were taken out of some kind of manager’s playbook, the low, warm, sweet tones of his voice made her think, at least for the rest of her workday, that she could make it through and survive D-Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confused by some of the jargon? Fear not! [Refer to this handy glossary](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1095927) for explanations on the following (in order of appearance) :  
> Shots  
> Color correction  
> Edit bays  
> The quirky naming in the studio  
> Key shots  
> Producer  
> Delivery day  
> Art Director  
> Production Coordinator  
> Green talent  
> Sequence  
> Compositor/Comp Artist  
> "vee-ones"  
> Animatics  
> "second gig"  
> Render  
> Color calibration  
> Project Manager  
> Dailies  
> Rate


	2. Wednesday

Amilyn Holdo: I hope you actually went out to get food because Comp just dropped 47 updated shots, so you might be stuck in _Alderaan_ for a while putting them in

Jyn Erso: …fuck me.

Amilyn Holdo: It’s okay! The producer isn’t even in to check up on us anyway. I actually don’t know where he went

Jyn Erso: He checked up on me just now. Went to _Tornado_ dailies with Leia and Cassian.

Amilyn Holdo: Ohhh that might explain why she hasn’t messaged me back about going on a coffee run together

Jyn Erso: Just ask her out already.

Amilyn Holdo: NO

Amilyn Holdo: That’s

Amilyn Holdo: No.

Jyn Erso: You’re usually a go-getter; what’s wrong with asking her out?

Amilyn Holdo: It’s just to WIRED

Amilyn Holdo: *too

Amilyn Holdo: *weird

Amilyn Holdo: sry Im wkaling to the comp atist bullpen

Jyn Erso: Stop deflecting. Also, stop walking and typing at the same time. What’s wrong with Comp now?

Amilyn Holdo: Bodhi’s trying to help the editor by exporting storyboards since you’re not in here to do that for us, soooo I’m trying to figure out why one of our Comp artists is THIS CLOSE to having some sort of breakdown over his renders

Jyn Erso: Ah, so we’ve hit mental breakdown stage?

_Lovely, just lovely_ , Jyn thought. If the comp artists, who’ve all been with this studio for at least a couple of years, were starting to have meltdowns over things not going their way, it was only a matter of time before her own descent into madness would come.

Wrapping up the color correction for yet another shot, she triumphantly changed the clip from its default label color to cyan, adding to the ever-increasing line of cyan clips in the episode before checking her work messages.

Amilyn Holdo: I stg if Melshi doesn’t focus soon I’m gonna send a GIF of that one princess smacking that thief with a frying pan. REPEATEDLY

Jyn Erso: Yep, that’ll show him the consequences of pissing you off.

Amilyn Holdo: You laugh, but I still see 47 shots of new comp footage sitting on the server that you have YET to mark in your trademark blue label, so you better be eating or else I’ll have to send you that GIF too

Jyn Erso: Sure. Meanwhile you can ask Leia out while I work on ingesting these shots.

Amilyn Holdo: STOP

Jyn Erso: It’s that, or you deal with that clusterfuck in the bullpen.

Amilyn Holdo: Ugh

Jyn Erso: Happy Hump Day!

Jyn took a moment to look back at how many shots she managed to color correct since coming in to the studio three hours prior.

 _40 shots. Nice_ , she thought. If she took a one-hour lunch break and no one interrupted her, she could technically finish the color correction by the end of the day.

The possibility raised her spirits.

And then the computer chimed: _Comp Dailies @ Alderaan, 2 pm – 3 pm_

Her spirits quickly sank.

She forgot about the fact that comp dailies were still going to happen while she was color correcting shots.

 _Losing an hour to dailies isn’t going to be that bad_ , Jyn tried to tell herself. Getting all the color corrections done by end of day Wednesday was a bit of a lofty goal, true, but she could wrap up the last few shots in the morning on Thursday if she skipped her lunch break. Comp dailies were only going to be an hour, after all- the producer and showrunners would surely make things quick so that the comp artists could go right back to work and export more shots.

Except that comp dailies lasted well over an hour.

“How come we haven’t seen any comps of the seaside shots?” one of the showrunners asked from an elevated desk behind Jyn. “Who’s assigned to those?”

“Melshi’s been given those shots,” Amilyn responded from Jyn’s left, who was occupying a portion of her work station. She tapped on her laptop’s trackpad to quickly access the shot assignments list.

“He’s had two weeks to work on these and we _still_ don’t have vee-ones?” he asked.

The director sighed in exasperation. “Look, we’re trying the best we can with things, but Melshi’s license for the particle effects we need _still_ isn’t working, and we need that for the seaside shots. Keitu’s gotten in touch with the company issuing the license, but they’re really slow to respond to us.”

“Can’t someone else render the shots for him?” the other showrunner asked impatiently.

“Everyone else still has over 10 shots each to render that have yet to be reviewed, on top of the shots you guys noted on Monday,” Amilyn added in a calm, level voice, and Jyn marveled at her ability to keep her tone separated from the wide-eyed, panicked face that remained turned away from the higher ups sitting behind them in the dark. “We can’t afford to tear them away from that just to render another person’s shots.”

“How many shots are in the seaside?” the director asked.

“Uh,” Jyn started, her finger tapping at each of the shots on her monitor. “16 shots, about?”

A collective groan filled the edit bay.

“There’s nothing that can be done about it in the meantime,” Amilyn pointed out after a brief moment of silence. “We still have five more shots to review for Pao, and then we have to take a look at Stordan’s comps, then Melshi’s.”

“How much time do we even have in this edit bay?” the first showrunner asked.

“Well, dailies was scheduled to finish 15 minutes ago,” Jyn said.

“Oh, but we technically have the whole edit bay to work on color corrects, right?” the second showrunner asked.

“Well, yeah, but I still have-“

“I’m sure it’ll be fine!” the producer chimed in. “We got this room all day, so let’s carry on with these comp dailies. The sooner we wrap up, the sooner Jyn can get back to color correcting.”

Jyn was trying her best to hide the egregious look she was tempted to give her producer, and she eyed Amilyn pleadingly, hoping that she could perhaps intervene and argue on her behalf.

It was no use- Amilyn turned away from the showrunners and back at Jyn to return an equally defeated expression, her lips mouthing the words “I’m so sorry”.

 _Breathe, breathe, breathe_ , Jyn told herself, and she took the longest breath inwards from her nose and tried her best not to burst out in annoyance.

The door to the edit bay opened, and Pao stepped in quietly.

“Hi Pao,” Amilyn said sweetly, and Jyn likewise offered him a greeting nod. “We don’t want to waste any of your time, so let’s review those five shots as quickly as we can, and then you can-“

“Actually,” Pao said sheepishly, “I just dropped in nine more shots.”

Jyn’s stomach sank- that would mean taking _more_ time to find those 9 shots, bring them over to her own server, and then cut them into the sequence.

“The cutoff time for submitting comps was 30 minutes before the start of dailies,” Jyn replied, hoping that her higher-ups would remember that cutoff times _did_ exist, and that they should be respected. This meeting was already going on long enough as it is, and she couldn’t afford to have it cut deeper into her work time.

“Pao’s already here, though- let’s take the time to bring those nine shots in so that he doesn’t have to come back tomorrow to review even more shots,” the producer chided.

Her left hand squeezed into a fist as she did as she was told, trying to maintain her cool all the while. “Give me five minutes,” she mumbled quietly, and she could see through the edge of her vision that Amilyn’s hand reached out to touch hers. But Jyn refused to be placated in this moment, and her hand slid away to punch away at her keyboard shortcuts just before Amilyn could make contact.

* * *

The clock struck 5 pm and everyone else had _finally_ cleared _Alderaan_.

“You’re doing a great job,” the producer said brightly. “I think we’re making great progress on this, and we’ll definitely make it in time for deliveries!”

It took all her energy to stop herself from taking a potshot at him over the two hours she just lost.

“Before I forget,” he added, “I know that we took up a lot of your time, but I’m sure you understand that we have to do it so we can get as many shots approved as possible.”

Jyn only nodded, trying to save her project file and answer some work emails that she couldn’t answer during dailies.

“So, whatever OT you need, just send me an email so it’s documented, and I’ll approve it immediately,” he offered. “Let me know if you need anything else- I need to meet with Baze about _Tornado_ stuff, so just send me a message, okay?”

She nodded again, a little more idly this time as she got to work in drafting an email to request overtime hours. If she was going to lose three hours to dailies, she may as well tack it on at the end of the work day and get more money out of it.

The producer had long since left (and, luckily, quickly approved her email request), when Jyn stood up from her chair and paced around the room to keep her circulation alive.

_Just a little over a hundred shots left to color correct._

Jyn quickly ran the math: if she cleared about 40 shots in the span of three hours, it meant that she was working on about 13 shots per hour, which would mean being able to color correct about 25 shots between now and 7 pm, when everyone else was due to wrap up their work day. With three extra hours of overtime already approved, she can knock out another 40 shots, totaling 65 shots.

Which would leave just over 40 shots for her to work on all day Thursday.

 _Good_ , she thought. _We’re making good time after all._ Perhaps her producer wasn’t overly optimistic. Perhaps he had foreseen this, and that things would turn around for the better.

Jyn sat back down at her chair, feeling a lot better about her chances to get some work done. But before she could close her browser tab with her work emails, she saw new unread items in her inbox:

_Updated Invitation: Comp Dailies @ Alderaan, 10 am – 12 pm_

_Updated Invitation: Anim Dailies, Picture Lock @ Bespin, 2 pm – 3 pm_

_Updated Invitation: Comp Dailies, RD II @ Alderaan, 4pm – 6 pm_

…What the hell was this?

If Jyn included her lunch hour (which she hadn’t even taken at all this week, opting instead to eat at the counter behind her work station in _Alderaan_ ), she was only afforded time to do her actual work for _two_ out of the eight hours of her standard work day tomorrow. And if today’s comp dailies were any indication, it was nearly guaranteed that the morning comp dailies would run until 1 pm, when everyone took a break for lunch.

The room suddenly got incredibly stuffy.

She stood back up and paced the room even faster this time.

_Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. You can do this. You got this. Just ask for more OT tomorrow, you’ll get this done._

A pinging sound rang in the room. She walked back to the computer to check her messages.

Amilyn Holdo: Heads up Jyn, I know you’re busy with color correct but don’t forget about tomorrow’s anim dailies. The animators dropped in about 50 v01s and 20 updated versions of other shots, so you’ll need to ingest those by EOD because you won’t get a chance to do it tomorrow morning due to comp dailies

Jyn Erso: …

Amilyn Holdo: I know. I’m so sorry

That failed to warrant any kind of answer from her this time.

Anger and stress were bubbling to the surface. How many more last-minute things are going to be thrown her way? How much more could they possibly expect of her? She was doing way too many jobs at once; hell, the _entire_ Editorial department- all _two_ of them- were drowning in work enough as it is.

The door opened. “Hey, Jyn-“

“No!” she snapped through gritted teeth, and she whipped around to face her producer angrily. She was already working late today; now was not the time for new announcements, or more tasks on her plate. She was at her wit’s end, and she just wanted some kind of a break. It was too much, it was just all way too much.

Except it wasn’t her producer at the door; it was _Cassian_.

His tired eyes widened, and he stood rigid at the doorframe. “Rough day?”

Her inner steam quickly evaporated, but what was left behind was pure fatigue. “Yeah. Sure. We can call it that.”

“I uh,” he hesitated, as though he were carefully navigating the minefield in the room. “I was just looking for our producer. I tried checking his office on your floor, but he wasn’t there, so I thought that maybe dailies ran longer than usual, and…”

She scoffed. “Much longer than usual. Way too long. But he left already, to talk to Baze.”

Jyn expected him to turn around and leave, which was just fine with her- she was still on edge, on the verge of tears from the overwhelming stress that continued to pummel her. He got the answer he wanted, after all.

Instead, he set his laptop and notepad down on the elevated desk and stepped closer.

“Are you going to be alright?” he asked with a low, concerned voice.

This was definitely a move out of a playbook- it was designed to bring her down from her high, to “get on her level,” as it were, but instead of comforting her, it only reminded her that she burst out at someone who not only wasn’t even _in_ her production, but who was also a higher-up. She, a subordinate, yelled at a long-time employee, someone of a higher station than her, who also managed to keep their cool with much more grace.

 _You have every right to be this angry,_ she reminded herself. _There’s a reason why you’re this stressed. You’re not the only one having a breakdown- think about Amilyn and everyone else in the bullpen._

Of course she had every right to be this angry. But it was still unprofessional of her. And she took her frustration out on someone unrelated to the whole thing.

Cassian’s brows furrowed with genuine concern, and she wondered if she really _did_ look like a completely frazzled mess.

“Is it…that bad?” she asked slowly. She wasn’t sure when her defenses started to lower- probably when the fatigue set in. It was hard to tell; everything was starting to blur.

He blinked again, still confused. “Is _what_ bad?”

“All of it,” she breathed. Had she even eaten today? She remembered breakfast, but…surely she had a snack or two, or… _something?_

Cassian ruffled his hair. _There it is again_ , she noted. He took a deep breath, a small hiss through his teeth, and said, “Honestly? You’re being dealt a really bad hand. _Bombad_ has a reputation for being a messy production and all that, so…”

“Great,” she whispered. “Just great.” She whipped around, too embarrassed to look at Cassian any further. Surely, she’d hit a low point, and if she wanted to make sure she had a shot at staying in Starbird Studios, she had to stop acting so unprofessional. “Listen, um, the producer isn’t in, and he’s likely back at his office by now. I think…I think you should go.”

Jyn heard him step even closer.

 _Great_. He was either going to berate her or dump kilos of sugar on whatever comfort he would think to give. Whatever he was about to say, she wasn’t in the mood to hear any of it. She just wanted the day to end already.

“Wanna get some food delivered? I haven’t eaten yet.”

Her mind skidded to a stop. _That_ was probably the last thing she’d expect him to say in a moment like this.

She turned back round to find Cassian leaning against the desk and typing away at his laptop.

“I noticed on the schedule today that our producer was stuck for most of the morning and afternoon attending different dailies for _Bombad_ ,” he explained. “I had the impression that maybe you didn’t have lunch either. It’s no good to work on an empty stomach.”

“I don’t have _time_ to eat,” she said with a near-snarl.

“You _have_ to have time to eat,” he countered, eyes still focused on his screen. “You can only give your team your best, and you can’t be at your best if you don’t care for your wellbeing.” His eyes scanned up and down his laptop screen and remained quiet for a few moments before finally tearing away from the laptop to look back at her. His eyes were a little brighter as he made the suggestion: “We got three options at this hour: Indian food, sandwiches, or dim sum.”

Jyn wanted to turn him away, just so she could shut herself in _Alderaan_ and get back to work. The longer he stayed here, the less time she had to work on color correction.

Her hesitation must have meant something to him, because the corners of his mouth began to creep upwards. “Our producer gave us the OK for a comped dinner; I hear the char siu bao at the dim sum place is _really_ good.”

* * *

Somehow, within an hour, the darkness of _Alderaan_ seemed less like a lonely cavern and more of a secret hideaway for her and Cassian as he triumphantly plopped their late lunch/early dinner atop the elevated desk where her showrunners sat just a few hours ago.

He lifted the lid and sniffed deeply. “Man, these soup dumplings smell so _good_! And- oh my god, they even gave us packets of black vinegar! This is definitely better than I expected.” His eyes sparkled with a youthful joy that seemed to take years off his face as he marveled at the food in front of them.

Jyn gingerly peeled the paper off the bottom of one of her char siu bao and took a bite. The bun itself was cloud-like- soft, white, and fluffy- and the pork was well-seasoned. Indeed, this really _was_ a gem of a place, especially considering how far away they were from Chinatown. The food warmed her gently as it made its way down to her stomach, and her stresses managed to melt away somewhat.

She never ate her meals with anyone outside of her project, much less with a project manager; the artists and assistants usually ate together, each project forming their own cliques at the lunch tables. It wasn’t a bad thing per se, but new people only showed up because they previously worked with other artists on a project that was already completed. Sitting with Cassian, however, with no other link than their own boss, felt unusual, to say the least.

“Food alright?” Cassian asked, and she realized that she’d only taken two bites of her char siu bao. This man was definitely a keen observer, she had to admit.

“Yeah, food’s great,” she replied, her voice noticeably brighter than hours ago. “This is all just…really new to me. It’s a lot to take in.”

His tongue darted out to catch a stray crumb on his thin lips, and he smiled wryly. “Yeah, I forget this is your first delivery week. On _Bombad_ , no less.” There was a sympathetic emphasis on the title of her project, and although it didn’t _quite_ make her feel better, she appreciated that he continued to re-iterate that she and the other artists were really toughing it out. “You know, our producer had a lot of nice things to say about you.”

She rolled her eyes and scoffed gently. “He has a lot of nice things to say about everything.”

Cassian chuckled. “Yeah, that’s true. The ship can be full of holes and sinking fast, and yet he’s still convinced we can get it to reach the shore. But his praise is different from his general positivity, you know. He tried to vouch for Leia to get a raise a couple of weeks ago, and he pestered one of the executives enough that they finally caved and gave her one.”

Jyn’s eyes drifted upwards to meet his, and she saw how brightly he beamed in the dim room. It was then that she realized that his hair was a slightly different kind of messy than the day before, but still parted the same way as it did before. Unlike Baze, Cassian actually _did_ style his hair after rolling out of bed- portions of his hair were styled to appear like they were swishing naturally in different directions, and she found herself fond of the look. It wasn’t too try-hard, but it wasn’t too unruly. In fact, it looked soft, inviting… _touchable_.

The man was smart- he was clearly making do with what little time he had in the morning to make sure he still looked decent. His outfit was a simple white shirt and jeans with a bit of slack in the legs, but there wasn’t a single wrinkle or stain to be found on either of them. In fact, she was relatively certain he’d gone out of his way to bleach his shirt to a crisp, perfect white.

Behind the pretentiousness of his “casually stylish” look, however, was a humble, friendly, kind person, and _that_ in itself, Jyn knew, was rare in this industry.

“The man knows good, hard-working talent when he sees it,” he said, still staring back at her, and she realized that his words were a lot more pointed than she realized.

She had to ask: “Why are you telling me this all of a sudden? We hardly know each other.”

His eyes darted away at the question, but only briefly. “I hate seeing people work so hard and think their efforts don’t matter. But they do. They matter. And it just kind of started to look like you were on the edge of feeling like your efforts never would.”

Jyn’s heart began to race again, and her face warmed up with embarrassment out of fear that he could hear it. A silence filled the room, and Cassian’s eyes wandered back down to his food. Her eyes squinted subtly- it was hard to tell given how dim _Alderaan_ was, but she could have sworn his ears reddened.

“I mean, I’m speaking from experience, anyway,” he suddenly, still fixated on the food he’d yet to pick up and resume eating.

She’d had only ever seen Cassian in passing since she started this job some five months ago, but this was the first time she’d seen him this quiet and pensive. Perhaps he was trying his best to channel the positivity of their producer, but even guys like him needed to take a break.

His ears, she noticed once more, became even redder than before.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to distract from the embarrassment that the two of them were obviously feeling. “I didn’t mean to come off doubting. It’s just that I’ve been alone this whole week since shit hit the fan, so having company like this is… _different_.”

The distraction failed- she eyed his free hand, balled into a fist on the counter, just brushes away from her own hand, and the blush on her face returned just as quickly as it left just seconds ago.

Cassian must have noticed the direction of her gaze, because there was a brief moment of hesitation in the air before Cassian slowly, tentatively, shyly inched his hand closer to hers.

Jyn didn’t withdraw her hand this time; rather, her hand swiveled in his direction.

His hand was much warmer and softer than she expected. As his fingers brushed slowly over the top of her hand, she breathed in slowly, trying her best not to make any sudden movements that would scare him away or otherwise deprive her of this new sensation.

Time slowed. The room began to warp and turn. Her heartbeat thumped louder, louder, louder…

Cassian’s head lowered and leaned in slowly. “You’ll get used to it soon,” he said in a low, welcoming voice, and the air around them thickened as a spark sizzled up her spine and made the hairs on her neck stand on their ends.

She wasn’t getting enamored by a _stranger_ , was she? Though, the longer she looked into his eyes, the way they appeared trustworthy and homey, the more she thought…

Yeah, maybe she _was_.

Jyn almost didn’t want the moment to end, but then the _Alderaan_ door burst open and Leia came marching in.

“There you are, Cassian!” she nearly screeched, and Jyn felt Cassian’s hand quickly withdrew, leaving her exposed to cool air.

“Yes?” he asked innocently, reaching up to ruffle his hair. Jyn eyed him, then Leia, then back again at Cassian.

“I swear, you’re shit at checking your messages sometimes,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “I need you to send out an export to our director so I can go home- it’s almost 7 o’clock.”

He pulled out his phone. “Huh. So it would seem. I’ll send that export out after I’m done eating, so you can go home now if you want.”

Leia didn’t seem entirely convinced by Cassian’s response, Jyn noticed- in fact, she was glancing back and forth between her and Cassian surreptitiously, and Jyn found herself trying to steady her breath so as to not give anything away (though she wasn’t sure what there was to give away, exactly).

“Alright, you’re the one that said it,” Leia said as she backed away slowly towards the exit. “Jyn as my witness, you’ll get it done, right?”

Cassian smiled casually and nodded. “Of course- you can trust your project manager.”

She wasn’t sure if Leia was suspicious of Cassian’s reassurance, the fact that she was sitting with him over dinner, or perhaps some combination of the two, but as the clock struck 7 pm, Leia seemed to decide that she wasn’t going to concern herself with the matter any further, and she reached for the door handle. “See y’all tomorrow, then,” she said cautiously, and shut the door behind her.

“Well,” he said at last, clearing his throat, signaling that their moment had passed, and her stomach sank slightly. “I think we should both get back to work.”

“Yeah,” she breathed, pulling herself back down to the real world by nodding in agreement. “Lots to do. Not a lot of time left to do it.”

Cassian picked up his bag of leftovers and scooped his laptop and notepad back into his arms. “I uh…I hope the dinner helped. You. Feel better, I mean.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, it did. A lot. Thank you, Cassian.”

His ears reddened again, and she had to bite down on her lip to keep her smile from widening like an idiot.

“I’ll uh…see you around?” he asked, leaning against the door frame.

Jyn nodded. “Yeah. You’ll know where to find me,” she teased.

He returned the nod, smiling a little wider than she’d been accustomed to seeing, and the door closed behind him with a gentle swish.

She shoved the last of her char siu bao in her mouth and looked back at her project file:

_Ninety-five shots left._

It was a wall of work that still seemed nigh insurmountable, but somehow the idea didn’t fill her with quite as much dread as it did a few hours ago.

Jyn wanted to blame a certain project manager for it all, but it was hard to when the thought of him forced her to purse her lips to hold back a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas, new jargon in this chapter! But rest easy- you can [refer to this handy glossary](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1095927) for explanations on the following (in order of appearance) :  
> Ingestion  
> Notes


	3. Thursday

It was a bit of a chilly Thursday morning, but Cassian kind of liked it- the sky was as groggy as he was.

He walked casually away from his car and pressed a button on his key fob to lock it when he was stopped in his tracks by a small bundle of energy wound tighter than the braids on her head.

“Cassian,” the bundle of energy said expectantly.

“Leia,” he greeted in turn.

“So how was your dinner date last night?” she asked with a wry smile.

Cassian walked past her. “Not a date,” he said.

Leia took a couple of extra strides to catch up with him. “It was totally a date. How was that not a date?”

He gave her an egregious look. “Would _you_ call it a date if it was a dinner comp’d by our production budget?”

“Well…no, but-“

“Not a date, Leia.”

Cassian could practically hear her eyes roll. “So I take it you’re not gonna ask her out, ever?”

He held his ID card up to the scanner next to the door on their floor, and the locks unlatched with a loud click as the scanner beeped and flashed a green light. “You wanna talk about not asking someone out? How are you and Ami?” he teased, holding the door open for her.

Leia glared at him briefly, but let out a “hmph” as she marched through the doorway.

He smirked. _That was easier than I thought_.

“You’ve been wanting to hit her up for a while, you know,” Leia pointed out, as though he weren’t already aware of the fact.

“Don’t need you to tell me twice, Leia; I just-“

The two hung right, then walked side-by-side down a narrow hallway. It wasn’t long until their producer rounded the corner from the other direction, and Cassian moved behind Leia to stand single-file as they nodded in greeting.

The producer looked as though he was going to keep walking, but he stopped himself mid-stride, as though a lightbulb just flickered on in his head, and took a step back to point at Cassian. “Cassian!” he beamed. “I gotta talk to you about something, you got a minute?”

Cassian was mid-nod when the producer then added, “No worries, it’s _great_ news! I just gotta stop by _Alderaan_ for a sec and check up on Jyn, if you don’t mind.”

What Cassian originally wanted to say was: _“I can just set up my desk for the day and you can meet up with me after you check up on Jyn,”_ at least until Leia began to sidle away.

“You two can check up on Jyn; I’ll head to my desk, yeah?” she suggested, maintaining her eye contact with him. It was really uncanny how a youngster like her could so easily use her eyes to silently scream: _“Ask. Her. OUT!”_

Not wanting to have an eye-to-eye conversation with his assistant editor, he looked to the producer, who was already looking at him as if the decision had already been made. “Um, I…yeah, okay, let’s go,” he conceded.

“Excellent!” the producer grinned, and cocked his head to the side in the direction of _Alderaan_.

* * *

The difference in lighting between _Alderaan_ and the office space outside of it was jarring- it took a few blinks for him to see Jyn sitting under the dim spotlight of the large work station as the producer opened the door, and it, too, seemed like Jyn needed to do adjust her vision to register the two new bodies entering the editing bay.

“Morning, Jyn!” the producer greeted brightly. Cassian had always wondered where the man got his energy. Even if he got an explanation, he couldn’t help but feel like it was baked into his DNA.

Jyn didn’t even bother to look back at them.

“Morning,” she mumbled. Cassian frowned; she looked absolutely _zombified_.

“You didn’t stay too late last night, did you?” their producer asked, his voice finally faltering slightly in concern.

“Um…I think I stayed until 10:30?” she replied, eyes still fixated on the monitor. “Yeah…10:30. Ish. No later than 11. Wanted to make sure I left before the security system activated. Came back here at 9.”

 _She stayed an extra three and a half hours yesterday,_ and _showed up an hour early today?_

“Wow, you stayed pretty late,” the producer responded, scratching at his salt-and-peppered beard thoughtfully. “You’re gonna document your hours and report the OT to Bodhi, right?”

“Yeah,” she said dully. “CC’d you in the email already.”

It took a lot of effort for Cassian to stop himself from hissing inwards and wincing. _Bombad_ wasn’t his project, sure, but it was maddening to watch this unfold and be completely powerless to help. If the way she snapped at him yesterday was her breaking point, then what was _this_?

“Great! Yes, we need to make sure you’re getting paid for all your hard work. Listen, I had a feeling you were gonna be busy so we’ll be out of your hair in just a sec, but I _did_ wanna pop in to let you know that the showrunners aren’t in the office yet, so we’re moving comp dailies to 10:30.”

Jyn’s only response was a slow nod, still refusing to tear away from the screen.

“I know this is really overwhelming for you and the other comp artists…and Bodhi and Amilyn, too, but we’re just in a situation that’s a bit… _crunchy_. I’ve seen a lot worse happen on other productions- we’ll pull through just fine,” he reassured her, but Cassian wasn’t quite convinced it eased matters.

He noticed a twitch in his vision and could’ve sworn he saw Jyn’s hand clench the mouse tighter. He knew what that meant: _How can the showrunners come in whenever they please when everyone else is bring put through the wringer to get this delivered on time?_

“Alright, well I gotta have a chat with Cassian about some stuff, so I’ll see you in a half an hour,” the producer said at last, and he held a hand out towards the door for Cassian to follow suit.

Cassian paused at the doorway to turn back and look at Jyn. He felt like he needed to say something to her, but what was there to say that didn’t seem so half-hearted? The only words that came to mind were so generic: “Good luck,” or “Hang in there,” or “I believe in you” were no good, even if he _did_ believe in her. He remembered his early days as a production assistant- if anyone ever told him any of _that_ , there was no way he was going to believe them. If anything, hearing it would have just pissed him off even more.

“Hey, is Jyn going to be alright?” he finally managed to ask after he and the producer rounded the corner back to where they came from.

“She’ll be fine,” the producer said soothingly. “We’re not in the best of times right now, but she’s been nothing but resilient, and she’s pulled through every time we’ve hit a snag in production. I have full faith in her. Why do you ask?”

“Uh, well, she just looks more and more exhausted every day this week, that’s all,” he shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, but a heat rose in his face and he tried his best to tousle his hair enough to cover his reddening ears. “So uh, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Right! Yes,” the producer said with a sudden perk to his voice, and a wide grin spread across his face. “Just got word from the president of the company: you got the job.”

Cassian’s eyes widened and his jaw went slack. “I…I what?”

The producer’s grin widened even more. “You got the job! Congratulations!”

He had to lean back against the wall. That couldn’t be right, could it? It just seemed so fast, after all- how often do people in his position get this kind of promotion in such a short amount of time?

“Cassian Andor: _Producer_ ,” the producer beamed with pride. “You’ll get to start a couple of weeks before we wrap up production on _Tornado_ , so it’ll be a bit hectic for you as you transition between shows, but you’re gonna get your own show! You’ll smash it, without a doubt.”

Relief washed over Cassian, and he let out an astounded, breathy chuckle. His hard work- his _years_ of hard work- were finally paying off. He _still_ couldn’t quite believe the news, even as the words rolled off his producer’s tongue so easily: Cassian Andor. Producer.

 _Producer_.

* * *

“Producer?!” Leia said a few octaves higher than Cassian expected.

“Yep,” he said, plopping down on the couch in _Endor._

“I’m so proud of you,” she nearly squealed, and she swiveled around in her chair out of excitement. But then something seemed to click in her mind, and she dropped her feet to brake herself. “Wait- you should celebrate with Jyn!”

Cassian rolled his eyes. “Go on a date with Ami first, _then_ you can make fun of me for not trying to say something to Jyn.”

Leia pursed her lips. “There’s no way she’d say yes to me, though.”

He rubbed the scruff of his chin thoughtfully. “What was it that you told me oh so many months ago? ‘ _You’ll never know how she feels until she actually tells you’_?”

“But where do I even start? You can’t just drop in without warning and ask someone out. You need to finesse that shit,” she huffed, and her face turned pinkish.

He shrugged. “Didn’t she dye her hair a new color over the weekend? It’s a nice forest-y green now. Start with that,” he suggested.

“I know!” she burst out. “It’s such a nice color, and she styled it so her hair framed her cheekbones, and it makes her look cool and classy, and…” Her voice trailed as she shook her head. “I didn’t tell her any of that when I complimented her hair on Monday.”

“Uh-huh.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. “And you didn’t ask her out for a lunch date in that moment, _because_?”

She turned a deeper shade of red. “She…look, I tried to play it cool, okay?” she stammered. “It’s just that she looked…I don’t know, _busy_. Frazzled. I didn’t wanna take up too much of her time.” Leia looked down, hands in lap, and twiddled her thumbs. “She and I haven’t really talked much this week; _Bombad_ delivers tomorrow, and they’re in deeper shit than _Tornado_ is, you know? I didn’t want to add to it.”

“Cool,” he said with a small, satisfied clap, “So you _do_ understand the position I’m in. Guess you’re gonna have to use your big-girl brain and figure something out with Ami, huh?” he teased.

His snark was met with a swift smack on the head with the couch pillow. Leia certainly knew how to throw her weight, but the dull pain was worth the punchline.

“Get your big-boy ass out of my edit bay,” she said flatly. “Also, congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he chuckled, and got up to return to his office.

* * *

Leia Organa: So it’s 6 pm and apparently Amilyn and the others are in full meltdown mode.

Cassian Andor: That would be your cue to offer to bring some dinner and call THAT a date. You’ve solved the puzzle, Leia!

Leia Organa: …

Cassian Andor: I’m so proud of you

Leia Organa: Come back to _Endor_ so I can smack you.

Cassian Andor: Why waste time doing that when you could be literally splitting some naan with Ami?

Leia Organa: I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of answering that question

Cassian Andor: You could give me the middle finger by actually going up to her and asking her out. I’ve only ever seen her eat with Jyn, and Jyn’s been on our floor all day

Leia Organa: If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jyn hadn’t eaten much either

Cassian paused. Leia had a point. If yesterday was any indication, Jyn was likely running on just coffee. He frowned- it was the last hour of his work day, and no one on _Tornado_ needed to pull extra hours to deliver their episode, so would it be weird to stay late to keep her company?

He checked the time: 6:15 pm.

If she was in _Alderaan_ , maybe he could offer to bring dinner again. And if she wasn’t in there, he’d have the satisfaction of knowing that she actually got her work done after all.

Cassian walked down the hall and made his way to the other end of the floor to _Alderaan_. Curiously, he peeked through the small window at the door. The dim spotlight from this morning was still on, there were papers scattered across the work station and floor, and all three computer monitors _and_ the large TV mounted on the wall were black.

The computer chair was empty.

 _Oh, good_ , he thought, though with an air of disappointment. _She actually went home._

He turned to walk away when he heard a high-pitched whimper, and he did a double-take.

Was that a dog he just heard in there?

Cautiously, he opened the door. There _were_ dogs in this office- perhaps Jyn accidentally closed the door without realizing that one of them had sauntered in. In fact, he had a few dogs in mind that were prone to doing that.

“Obi?” he called out. “You in here?”

He heard the whimper again as he stepped into the edit bay, but it was quickly stifled, and he was quickly surrounded by silence. The door shut with a gentle swish behind him, and he took another step forward.

“Obi, did you get trapped in here again?” he tried one more time, listening carefully for any hint of a pitter-patter, or even a tinkling of name tags.

There was a sniffle.

Cassian froze. The sound wasn’t canine. It was _human_.

“…Jyn?”

He heard the sniffle again, just as briefly as he had before, but it wasn’t coming from the work station. Cassian whirled around, checking the line of comfy chairs and the couches at the back of the edit bay, in the elevated desk area, only to find them all empty.

Where, exactly, was the sound coming from?

Cassian bent over and walked carefully along the perimeter of the edit bay, scanning the floor for feet. There, in the darkest, loneliest corner, just behind one of the large speakers, was a line of white in the shape of sneakers, belonging to a curled-up Jyn. Her bun was undone. Her side bangs clung to her face. Her eyes were red and puffy but wide with shock, and his gut sank as he finally realized why the papers were scattered all over the work station.

“Jyn,” he said again, more firmly this time, and held a hand out to her.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t even _budge_.

“They can’t agree on anything,” she whimpered shakily.

“Who can’t?” he asked quietly.

“They can’t agree on anything. They left at 5. Nothing’s been approved.” Her breath shuddered, and he could hear the bitterness dissipate into the air around her. “Melshi’s plugin still doesn’t work. We have no vee-ones for the seaside shots. That’s 30 shots that I can’t work on. The others…their plugins are constantly breaking. I’m getting updated shots with the ugliest watermark. Keitu’s still trying to sort it out, but…There’s so much more work to do.”

It all came out as a mumble, and it was hard for Cassian to understand, but the defeated tone in her voice created rips in his heart with every word that spilled forth. He continued to reach, if only to show her that she could take his hand, but the seconds ticked by and her gaze was still distant.

“Jyn, please,” he pleaded, reaching further into the nook she created for herself. “Come here,” he beckoned. “Come here.”

She blinked, and her gaze shifted, as she finally registered a presence in the room. Jyn stared at the hand in front of her before making her way up to his face. “Cassian?”

Cassian realized that the Jyn he saw yesterday wasn’t broken, at least not yet. The woman looking blankly at him right now, at this very second, _this_ was a broken Jyn. He was staring into the eyes of a woman he’d seen work quietly, diligently, and unflappably over the past seven months, finally stretched so thin that she snapped and hadn’t been able to recover from it.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “It’s me. I’m here.”

“You need to go,” she whispered. “I begged my editor to go to _Bespin_ and handle anim dailies for me as it is; if anyone catches you here, they’ll think I was slacking on the job.”

“No, Jyn, that’s absurd; no one would never think that of you,” he reassured her. “Please,” he pleaded again, trying to stretch his arm out as far as he could, but still fell short of touching her. “Come here. Let’s get you out of that corner.”

Jyn shook her head and new tears streaked down her face. “I can’t, Cassian. I can’t.”

“Yes you can, Jyn. Please, come here. Let me-“

His throat suddenly tightened.

_Let me try and comfort you. Let me be here for you. Let me do my best to take the pain away, at least enough for you to keep going._

He had to try, right?

“Let me give you a hug,” he said instead. “Everyone could use one when they’re stressed, especially when D-Day is around the corner.”

“Is this why they call it D-Day?” she asked hauntingly, still clearly shaken up. “Because it’s a war zone?”

There was no use trying to sugarcoat anything at this point. He may aspire to be more like his producer, but this was certainly not the time. “Yeah,” Cassian nodded. “But we succeed. We survive. We deliver. _Together_.”

She continued to stare distantly at his direction, but he could see the gears turn in her head as she considered his words.

“Together,” she repeated with a whisper.

“Together,” he confirmed again.

Then, slowly, she reached out for his hand, and clasped it delicately.

He pulled her out from behind the giant speaker, as though he were pulling her out of a pile of rubble, and opened his arms wide to offer a hug.

Instead, in all her fatigue, she stumbled into his embrace and let herself go, smearing meek, quiet tears all over his clean, pressed button-up.

Cassian had spent more than half a year observing Jyn as an outsider, admiring her work ethic, her neat and tidy hair bun with every strand falling into place, the way she smiled when she’d greet him in passing, and even the way she joked with her fellow artists during lunch, her laugh so light and airy and inviting that he’d yearned get to know her, if only to hear that laugh and see that side of her more often.

Somehow, in the span of just a few days, they’d gone from polite greetings in the hallway and the occasional chat messages asking for quick favors to leaning against the elevated desk, arms wrapped around each other as she trembled under him.

He found himself at a loss for words. Does one just… _stand_ here without saying a word until the person calms down? Does he rub her back? Is that even appropriate? Would that actually help, or would it make her cry more?

Jyn clutched the bottom hem of his shirt, her nails scraping gently against his bare skin underneath, and he melted. He held her just a little tighter, one caring squeeze, and pulled back slightly, just enough to see her face.

She let go of him and covered her face. “No. No, I look like shit.”

“Well…yeah, but you have to breathe at some point,” he joked, and it elicited a single chuckle out of her.

Jyn bit her lip nervously, and Cassian wondered how it took him this long to notice how endearing it was. She noticed his hand, which had somehow drifted up close to her cheek, then looked back at him. Despite the dim lighting, he could see the slight golden glimmer in her cool-green eyes, and his knees weakened slightly.

“Were you about to wipe my face?” she teased. “What am I, a child?”

He brought that hand back to fuss with his hair so that it’d cover his ears. “Um…no. Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

Her face became a different kind of flush as she slowly reached up for his hand and brought it back down, next to her face, and squeezed it reassuringly. “What did you mean to do, then?”

Honestly? Cassian wasn’t so sure himself. But his hand began to move on its own, and he traced a finger from her forehead, along the side of her face, gently brushing her hair away from her face. He repeated the action on the other side, and he took care this time to move slower as he reached her cheek, indulging in how soft it was to touch. She, too, took it in, and her eyes closed as she breathed in the moment as slowly as she could.

“I’m usually alone when things like this happen,” she said quietly, reiterating what she had told him yesterday. “This is still… _weird_ to me.”

He swiped a thumb across her cheek, and it bounced back with a plumpness he wanted to get to know more of. “Didn’t I tell you? You’ll get used to this soon.”

A realization seemed to have struck her, because her eyes widened subtly, and she looked at him with a million questions running across her glassy eyes.

Cassian tensed up. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign. _This is it_ , he said. He’d crossed a line. He could see it now: Jyn would shove him away. Tell him to leave her alone. Call him a creep. Report him to HR.

Instead, “I um…I have to stay extra again. To finish the rest of the color correction. Are you…?” she drifted off and played with the hem of her own grey shirt.

She didn’t need to say more. “I could- I could stay a little later. Get some work done, and all that,” he replied.

“Do…do you think you could work in here? And keep me company?” she mumbled, turning her head shyly away from him.

He could feel his ears run hot. “Yeah. Of course. I’ll be back in five?” he asked.

As soon as Jyn nodded, Cassian wasted no time heading back to his office to pick up his laptop and notepad.

Leia popped her head in as he was gathering his things. “You walked past me smiling like an idiot. Did you finally ask her out?”

Cassian paused. _Was_ he smiling the whole time?

A knowing smile spread across Leia’s face. “Did she say _yes_?”

“I didn’t ask her out,” he said firmly, trying to straighten his face back out, to little success.

“So, what, you’re going home?”

“Uh, no, actually.” Cassian pulled his dark grey blazer up from the back of his seat and slung it over his shoulder. He shifted his weight the other way to better cradle the laptop and notepad he was carrying, before making his way out. “I’ll be doing some work outside my office.”

She arched a brow. “Outside your office and inside _where_?”

“… _Alderaan_.”

“So you _are_ going out!” she grinned.

“No,” he said again, but he still couldn’t help the smile stretching across his face as he nudged Leia out of the way to walk back down the hallway. “I haven’t asked her yet. But I will. Eventually.”

With luck, "eventually" would be sooner than later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: There used to be someone at work who brought his dog to work with him every day. She was a precious little chihuahua who loved to wander the halls and sit on any couch she could jump on. Her name was Star Wars themed, so this is a shout-out to that. Naturally, I've changed the name to something else.
> 
> Why choose Obi-Wan, you ask? In Japanese, "wan" is the sound for barking (the equivalent of "woof" or "arf").


	4. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deliveries kept _me_ busy for a while, but now that the coronavirus has forced me to work from home, I finally found a pocket of time to wrap this up! Thanks so much for your patience, everybody <3
> 
> Enjoy a longer final chapter!

Fridays were usually great days- they were the starting line to the weekend, and once the clock struck 7 pm, the starter’s pistol would fire, and then the real fun would begin.

But as Cassian sat with his producer at exactly 10 am on the dot, it was clear that the race had begun since Monday, and everyone was running for their lives, unsure of where the finish line was, let alone if they were nearing it at all.

“Up late?” Cassian inquired.

The producer took a gulp of his coffee- black, of course- and set the mug back down. “I don’t actually remember what time I left the office last night,” he admitted, and Cassian noticed that, for once, his eyes weren’t as open or alert as they were yesterday. Though, come to think, his producer’s eyelids _had_ become progressively droopier with each passing day this week. “Lots of stuff I needed to organize and get ready for _Bombad_ and _Tornado_. If I didn’t get the prep work done last night, I’d never find the time to do it today. How’s Leia holding up in _Endor_?”

“She’s been a bit cranky from the stress, but she’s trying to grind out everything as fast as she can. At the rate she’s going I think we’ll have deliverables ready for the network at around 5 tonight. We can get the other screeners sent out by Monday.”

“Good. Yes. Excellent. I’m glad,” the producer sighed sleepily, and popped a handful of blueberries into his mouth. Cassian eyed the display of containers on one corner of his producer’s work station, each with their own collection of colorful, neatly cut and prepared produce. He always told himself that he should be eating better but…carrot sticks for breakfast? Hard pass. (He’d take the coffee, though).

“So how’s _Bombad_?” Cassian decided to ask.

The producer shook his head in disappointment. “Honestly? We could’ve had this smoothed over and ready to deliver in time for everyone to go home at 7 tonight. There are just… _a lot_ of complications that are making this whole D-Day…” His voice trailed off and his eyes wandered to the side, searching for any sort of euphemism he could hang on to.

Cassian wasn’t going to let him. “A shitstorm. It’s a total shitstorm right now, isn’t it?” he asked flatly.

“It took until close to end of day yesterday for Melshi’s particles plugin to finally work, but since his shots are the most resource-intensive, we’re looking at 4-hour renders for each of them,” the producer spilled without missing a beat. “Bodhi’s been staying late processing time cards and verifying everyone’s OT for this week alone, never mind last week’s for the animators. Amilyn’s picked up some of the slack in filling out time cards, but dailies are taking up most of her day. The editor has been clocking out no earlier than 10 pm this entire week, all because the showrunners are having difficulties hashing out a couple of major scenes in our latest animatic, which has to lock and be delivered to the network by end of day. Jyn hasn’t seen anyone on her floor this entire week because she’s been holed up in _Alderaan_.”

“What, that’s all?” Cassian joked, but the producer’s rant left him grateful that despite all the nonsense the two of them had to endure with _Tornado_ ’s clients, at least things weren’t as messy as _Bombad_.

The producer stood up to shut his office door and no sooner did he do so that he whipped around and his eyes darkened. “Don’t get me wrong; I love working with the director and showrunners. They’re such hard workers and they’re some of the funniest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

Cassian winced. The big “but” was coming, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“But this time around,” he sighed, sitting back down on his chair, “there are just _way_ too many cooks in the kitchen. Without unanimous agreement, a shot can’t be approved. We could’ve had more shots approved yesterday, but the showrunners both went home at 5.”

Cassian thought back to Jyn’s breakdown in _Alderaan_ : _“They can’t agree on anything. They left at 5. Nothing’s been approved.”_

“You’re really keeping a level head in spite of all this,” Cassian noted.

The producer bit down on a carrot stick. “I _have_ to, Cassian. What other choice do I have? We’ll pull through, though. It won’t be pretty, and we’re all on edge right now, but we’ll pull through.”

Cassian was sure those last words were more for the producer than they were for him.

“I gotta make some phone calls for _Tornado_ soon, but since you’re gonna head back to your desk at some point, could you just check up on Jyn for me and make sure she’s alright?” the producer asked of him. “She hasn’t been answering my messages, but it’s possible that she’s just in the zone.”

He stood up and could only muster a nod before exiting the producer’s office.

* * *

Plenty of productions in the studio were delivering today, it seemed- a thick air of dread was trapped in different pockets on his floor as he headed towards _Alderaan_. He peeked into the slim window on _Alderaan’s_ door, and, sure enough, there was Jyn, sitting in the darkness, illuminated by the blue lights of her monitors. She appeared to be in a trance, eyes darting from one monitor to the next, clicking and clicking.

He pulled out his phone: _Jyn’s plugging away in Alderaan_ , he typed out to his producer, and was about to walk back to his own desk, but couldn’t help but admire the woman on the other side of that door, and the determination bubbling in her as she hustled to get her work done.

Cassian was tempted to knock on the door and say hi, but did he really want to be responsible for interrupting her workflow?

“Who are you spying on?” a voice asked from behind.

He nearly jumped and dropped his laptop in surprise, and he turned around and craned his neck to look at the person who managed to creep up on him.

“Keitu, _why_?” Cassian sighed exasperatedly at the IT support.

“Why what? I was just curious to know who’s in there that’s making your ears red.” The incredibly tall, dark man shifted his weight and adjusted the strap on his laptop bag. He slouched over slightly to get a peek in the window, as though looking through it at Cassian’s level would help him understand why Cassian reacted the way he did.

Reflexively, Cassian tousled his hair again, and re-groomed the sides to cover the tops of his ears, even if the action was already moot.

“Ah, the new one- Jyn Erso,” Keitu remarked. “I don’t envy her position.”

“Do you envy anyone’s position?” Cassian asked dryly.

“I envy the position of anyone who makes more money than me despite being far less qualified,” he retorted. “This industry is full of them; I have more than enough people to envy.”

_Fair point._

“But,” Keitu continued, “ _Bombad_ is such a mess of a production. I’ve only ever seen messes like this on pilots, but an actual series? I hope they’re all getting paid well.”

Cassian looked back again at Jyn- still clicking away, still unaware of their presence.

“At least in the bullpen on their floor, everyone’s got each other this week,” Keitu observed. “Jyn, though…it’s just her in that room by herself, isn’t it? It looks like she’s doing alright, though, so that’s good.”

Oh, how little Keitu knew.

“Anyway,” he said, changing his focus back to Cassian, “Leia’s still in _Endor_ , right? Apparently, her APC is beeping frantically, so I have to go check it out. Fingers crossed that this doesn’t affect _Tornado_ deliveries.” He stalked away, leaving Cassian by himself again.

Cassian looked back through the window, but instead of seeing Jyn working on her color correction, Jyn was staring back at him with a look of surprise and confusion. He waved nervously in return, ears getting hotter, but before he could step away and hide his blush from her, she’d already gotten up from her chair and opened the door to let him in.

“Hey,” she breathed, and although she sounded a tad winded and her eyelids drooped the same way as their producer’s, Cassian could’ve sworn he saw a bit of a spring in her step.

He swallowed his hopes down- there was no way that tiny bit of energy was because she was excited to see him, surely.

“Hey,” he repeated just as softly.

“Did you, uh, need something from me?” she asked nervously, backing away from the door frame and allowing him to take a few steps in.

“Our producer sent me to check up on you since you haven’t been answering his messages.” There was _no way_ he was going to admit that he was watching her work.

Her eyes widened and she checked her messages on the computer. “Oh, crap,” she hissed, and began to type furiously. After a few moments of frantic keyboard pounding, she turned back to him. “Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly.

“Don’t be. How you holding up?”

Jyn glanced at her work station before looking back at him. Cassian briefly eyed her headphones, and could hear muffled poppy synths and drum beats emanating from it.

“It’s not great,” she admitted, and she bit her lip nervously. “I got, what, 50 shots left? And a lot of meetings in between. We still have to sort out the audio deliverables from the sound designer and get that ready for delivery, but my editor’s holed up in _Yavin IV_ trying to lock one of our animatics. He still has to add some additional filters for _this_ episode, and Melshi has to get a chunk of his comps approved since he and Keitu _finally_ got that plugin to work last night.”

He could hear the rising inflection of stress with each word. As much as he wanted to reach out to hug her, however, he forced himself to resist. Sure, he might have embraced her the day before, but that was in the heat of the moment. Today was a new day- he wasn’t going to violate her space like that.

“How long have you been in today?” he asked hesitantly, afraid of what the answer might be.

“Came in at 8. I think only slept four hours. Could’ve slept more, but…” she shrugged. “Stress, you know? Can’t fuck this up, or else I’ll never find another job.”

“Hey,” he countered, taking a step closer. “You’ll be fine. Working in a studio like this? You’ve already made it in the industry- finding a new contract will be easy.”

“I was unemployed for six straight months until our producer called me in for an interview,” she sniped. Her eyes quickly darkened, and he could feel her walls building up as she took a step back.

Cassian bit the inside of his cheek. He felt foolish for trying to be as positive as his boss, even more so because Jyn refused to buy into the optimism.

“You don’t think I see the people around me, Cassian?” The words were as fearful as they were bitter. “Yeah, most of them have the same skin tone as me, but how many people have you worked _under_ that have a physique like mine? Or hair like mine? Or a voice like mine?”

It was hard to chalk this up as an overreaction. The industry was small- one misstep could ruin your career. There wasn’t much to say to try and prove her otherwise, not when she’s _this_ observant.

“The only reason why I got this job is because they wanted a _diversity hire_ ,” she said quietly, with a special, acidic emphasis on the final two words.

Cassian paused. Those words were all too familiar to him.

“Yeah,” she nodded, sensing his surprise. “I heard the showrunners say it. Behind closed doors. Doesn’t matter that I’m also qualified for the job- it’s hard to think about that when you remember that they picked you more for your biology than your merits.”

His hands reflexively tightened into fists.

“You don’t think those words haven’t been used on me before?” he shot back, and Jyn’s eyes widened subtly.

Cassian closed the gap between them, and he was re-acquainted with their height difference as he towered over her. “Look at me.”

“I already am,” she said dryly.

“No, Jyn, _look_ at me,” he said again. His stare was more imperative as he tried to imbue her with the determination that kept him going for so many years. The muffled sound of upbeat pop music from Jyn’s headphones faded away as he looked past the blues and greens and that youthful golden sparkle, past the darkness in her that almost refused to relent, and found a lone assistant editor who simply wanted someone to get on her level.

His voice lowered. “If they want to hire you because they want to tick off a box that’ll allow them to pat themselves on the back, _let them_. This industry…you can’t get anywhere if you don’t know anyone. If you ‘got lucky’ in getting a job, you’re already doing it right, because that’s how any of us ever make it.”

Jyn’s eyes drifted away without another word, and Cassian faltered slightly. Perhaps he was being a little too harsh on her, or maybe he was painting the picture with too broad a brush. He wanted to fire her up, to inspire her, but the more the seconds ticked by in silence, the more he worried that perhaps he’d burned her instead.

But then, she nodded. It was slow and hesitant at first, but the more she mulled it over, the more her nodding grew surer and surer, until she finally looked back at him and he could see the embers within.

Cassian couldn’t help but smile proudly. “Make them see you. Demand a little more than what they offer you. Take it all, and don’t _ever_ give it back,” he said with a stronger conviction.

She nodded once more, and he witnessed the embers in her eyes spark into a small flame.

His breath hitched slightly as his heart skipped a beat at the sight. He had to be careful- if he stared at her like this for too long, he could get lost in it all. It was best to step back. He _needed_ to step back. But their eyes remained fixated on each other, and the silence continued to hang in the air between them. Cassian could hear his heart beat harder and harder against his chest, and could have sworn the sound of it was filling the room, but he didn’t want this exchange to end, not when it felt as intimate as this.

“Too much?” Cassian said at last, low and steady.

Jyn suddenly whipped away and turned back to face her work station. “No,” she responded, although she tripped over the word slightly. “Not at all. But I should, um, get back to work.”

“Right,” he said, resigned- he was overstaying his welcome. “Right,” he repeated, nodding and turning for the door.

As he placed a hand on the handle, Cassian turned his head to get one last look at Jyn- her hair was in a neat bun, as usual, though her fringe bangs framed her face in messy wisps. He’d definitely seen someone with that kind of drive in her eyes and that fire in her soul, fighting through the stress and fatigue, if only to make a good enough impression to move up the ranks and make great things.

That someone was now- as of yesterday- a producer.

Jyn was going to be more than fine.

Cassian gave her another proud smile. “You’re gonna kill it today,” he said warmly, giving one final glance out of the corner of his eye as he shut the door.

If his vision wasn’t failing him, he was pretty certain he saw her smile back.

* * *

“Leia, you forgot to update the slate again,” Cassian sighed. “I’m gonna need you to re-export it or else the client’ll bounce it back again, and we’ll be here longer than we should be.”

Leia looked as though she was going to punch him. After working with her for several months, he knew that anger wasn’t actually directed _at_ him- rather, she was angry at herself for making such a common mistake. Still, that didn’t change how scary it was to be stuck in the cross-hairs.

“You’re gonna have to master your poker face,” he added half-jokingly as he watched her double-check the slate for the proper run time, date, and any other details that might have slipped past her. “Not everyone is as cool as me and knows what all your minute facial tics mean.”

She sighed as she hit the “Return” key and spun around in her chair while the render commenced. “I know, _I know_ ,” she responded dryly. “I need to be more composed.”

“It’s alright though- anyone can make that mistake,” he soothed.

“Yeah, but that’s not the kind of mistake an _assistant_ editor should be making,” she retorted. “The job description literally requires me to detail-oriented. So much for _that_.”

She dropped her heels to the carpet to stop herself from spinning in order to look at him with a wry grin. “When you hop over to _Kessel Run_ , you’re not gonna be around to nag me about this anymore.”

He chuckled. “I’ll miss you too, Leia.”

“I know I don’t have a lot of time left on my contract, but it sucks that I’m not gonna end it with you around,” she sighed, leaning back on her chair.

“Leia, we work in the same building,” he deadpanned.

She scoffed. “Please. How often have you seen your coworkers from your last contract here?”

“I have lunch with a few of them,” he said defensively.

“We have too many floors and not enough time, Cassian. At best I’ll get to see you, what, once a month? And that’s probably only if you wind up using a conference room on the same floor as wherever the hell _I’ll_ end up.”

Cassian pursed his already-thin lips and licked them subtly. His years at Starbird Studios had gone by in such a blur that he hadn’t realized that his friendships were essentially a revolving door of people coming in and out of his life based on whatever contract he was given for the year. A new position meant a new contract, and a new group of friends with which to spend his free time. It didn’t mean that the people he’d met just stopped being his friends with him, or had a falling out with him. Surely, if he saw them again- and it _was_ known to happen- they could catch up, get a drink, or even grab lunch together, as if things had never changed since they last saw each other. There was never any ill will with the newfound friends that he had to put behind with each new contract; they simply weren’t around to interact with anymore.

Which meant that Leia would, through no control of their own, slowly fade out of his life as they both focused on work.

And so would Jyn.

This whole time, he’d been viewing the recent events in his life as separate things, never intertwining, never affecting each other. He got the contract, and, effectively, the promotion. And he was finally really getting to know Jyn. She was no longer just a strikingly cute face that he’d see in passing between meetings; in fact, it almost felt as though their bond strengthened severalfold in the past week alone.

Not once did he consider that his promotion could quickly butt heads with his desire to get to know her more, and his stomach sank at the thought.

Leia squinted curiously. “I feel like I just slapped you with something you didn’t want to hear.”

“I…”

How was it that he’d worked for Starbird Studios for as long as he had without really thinking about how fleeting his relationships were?

“I hadn’t actually realized that,” he quietly admitted.

“I mean it’s not like we _didn’t_ sign up for this,” she offered. “Of course I know that it is what it is. It sucks, and I’m gonna keep complaining about it, but I like you a lot, and that’s saying something.

“Let’s be real, though: unless you put in a hell of a lot more effort to make it work, you’re just not gonna see your old pals unless it’s at the parking lot, or the holiday party, or the next screening at the studio. We’ll both be too busy hanging with our new wolf pack.”

_Unless you put in a hell of a lot more effort…_

Everyone here was already putting a hell of a lot of effort to begin with- how much more could any of them afford at the end of the day?

Cassian smiled, if a bit sadly. “I’ll miss you too, Leia,” he said again, but with all the seriousness of an impending goodbye.

For once, Leia didn’t really have any witty words or snarky remarks; instead, she returned a somber smile and a curt nod.

* * *

“We’re going to need a re-paint on shot one-oh-three for this foreground element,” Baze remarked with all the scrutiny and concentration of a scientist over the color-calibrated TV.

Cassian, sitting at a desk behind Baze, nodded and quickly typed out the note on his laptop. “Re-paint on one-oh-three. Notifying the bee-gee artists now,” he confirmed as he tapped the “Return” key with finality. He let out an uncertain sigh- it was 4 pm on D-Day; repainting something so last-minute always made him uncomfortable, but it’s not like he didn’t expect this to happen.

“We can get that touched up quickly, right?”

“I’m assigning the asset to one of our rookies- he’s pretty good at doing quick touch-ups,” Cassian confirmed with a tinge of hope.

“Excellent,” said Baze.

The two continued to scrub through _Tornado_ deliverables for a time, before Baze leaned back on his chair to stretch his back in crackling satisfaction.

“So. _Producer_ ,” he said.

Cassian fiddled with his hair again, brushing it over his ears to cover the tips. It was an absurd habit- Baze wasn’t even facing his direction to see if his ears even _had_ turned red.

“Yeah,” Cassian replied sheepishly. “I’m pretty excited.”

“I would imagine so- you must be proud of all your accomplishments.”

Reflexively, Cassian thought of the revolving door again.

“Yeah,” Cassian responded hesitantly, but then shook the thought away. “Yeah,” he repeated with a stronger assurance. “I _am_ proud. Definitely. I’ve worked my ass off for this, and it’s finally happening.”

“You don’t sound terribly happy, Andor.”

Cassian was but a simple project manager, soon to be producer, in the presence of a respected and incredibly skilled art director, who’s had well over a decade of experience over him. Personal issues and existential crises are _not_ something to talk about with someone of Baze’s stature- there was simply no way he was going to dump some fresh emotional baggage onto the table during a meeting.

“I’m good,” he decided to reply. “Just stressing out over deliveries. I’m hoping we don’t have to pull any OT for this.”

As soon as he said it, he already knew Baze wasn’t going to buy it. Baze hummed skeptically, and Cassian could almost hear the parental “if you say so” nag behind it.

“Yes?” he decided to ask in feigned naivety.

“Are you not proud of all the hard work you put in for it?” asked Baze.

“I am.”

“You may be a producer, but you’re certainly not a good storyteller.”

Now Cassian was _really_ glad Baze wasn’t looking at him and his red ears.

“I know it may not seem like it, but you _are_ free to tell me what’s on your mind,” he reminded Cassian. When Cassian said nothing, Baze leaned forward again and turned his attention back to the computer screen.

“Have the compositor mask out the-“

“Do you ever think that there’s room for relationships in our line of work?” Cassian blurted out, practically tumbling over the words.

Baze paused, but Cassian couldn’t decipher his body language based on the view of his back alone.

“You’re concerned that you’ll be so busy you won’t have time for love in your life,” Baze guessed.

“Er…yes.”

“Which was never an issue until you got the promotion,” he guessed again.

“Producer is just…pretty high up on the ladder,” Cassian confessed. “Whatever work-life balance I have now, I’m worried it’ll go down the drain once I’m on _Kessel Run_.”

“You want my advice?” Baze offered.

Cassian was stumped. He was just sort of airing his complaints; he certainly wasn’t expecting someone to offer advice, especially not Baze.

“Uh, yeah, if you’ve got any,” Cassian responded, bracing himself for bad news.

“Do it anyway.”

_Wait, what?_

“Make it work. Your job? It’s work. Your relationships? It’s also work. The work never ends.”

It was a pretty pessimistic way of looking at things.

“But you work hard at your job because you think it’s worth it; you’re in this line of work because you enjoy it,” he added. “Relationships are the same way.”

Scratch that- it wasn’t pessimism, but _pragmatism_.

Somehow, though, it made an awful lot of sense.

“About a decade ago, I was trying my hardest to rise in the ranks, to the point where I never went to a single work outing,” Baze revealed.

“Really? But you show up to _every_ work outing,” Cassian said in surprise. “What happened?”

Cassian heard a small huff of amusement, and he could only guess that Baze was smirking.

“I was rushing through the halls one day and nearly crashed into a sound designer visiting from Sound of the Whills,” he said simply, referring to the sound mixing studio down the street from Starbird Studios. “I told him, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m _blind’_.”

“Yikes. What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Really? You too?’. Turns out he was _actually_ , legally blind.”

Cassian winced. “Then what?”

“Well,” he chuckled, “we’re married now, and I’m Starbird’s primary art director.”

It seemed remarkably simple when Baze explained it. Could he have perhaps been overthinking things? Maybe he could have it all, and not just have to commit his life to work.

“Naturally, none of it was easy,” Baze explained further. “But nothing that’s ever truly worth it is easy, no?”

Cassian nodded, and although there was no way for Baze to see him do it, Baze seemed to pick up on the gesture, and nodded back.

“So,” he said, scrubbing some more. “Have the compositor mask out this stray piece of art over here. It looks like they forgot to take it out,” he directed, circling his mouse pointer over the problematic piece of art. “The shot is approved otherwise.”

“Gotcha,” Cassian replied, typing quickly.

“So what’s this person like?” Baze asked while Cassian was still typing.

“She’s hard-working,” he responded absent-mindedly. “Looks like a fighter. Eyes that you could get lost-“

Cassian froze, realizing what Baze had gotten out of him, and he could feel the redness spread from his ears to his neck, all the way up to his face.

Baze let out a bellowing laugh, self-satisfied that his trick worked. “Is it the assistant editor? The one on _Bombad_?”

Cassian’s silence, unfortunately, said it all. Baze laughed again, and Cassian’s face turned a deeper shade of red.

“She’s a keeper,” he said anyway. “At least, for this studio. She reminds me of you back in the day, you know; definitely bound to go places.”

“Yeah, if the right people would let her,” he mumbled, remembering how Jyn bitterly worried about her own career trajectory.

“I dare say that the right people are closer to her than she expects,” Baze said knowingly, but before Cassian could ask about it, Baze perked up and circled his mouse pointer over another portion of a different shot. “Have the comp artist ease up on the blur here- Leia’s already going to apply motion blur on all these shots, so the added blur is going to make this unreadable.”

“Right, got it,” Cassian said with the swiftness of a soldier, and went right back to typing.

* * *

It was 6:30 pm and Cassian and Leia eagerly watched her export chug along:

…98%...

…99%...

…100%.

Leia looked as though she could squeal, which was a rare sight. Cassian had to admit, it was certainly endearing.

“Alright, don’t get too excited just yet,” he warned. “Let’s give it a watchdown before we send it off to the client.”

Things looked smooth from start to finish, and just as the clock struck 6:55 pm, Cassian couldn’t help but smile: the episode was ready to deliver.

“This means I can go home, right?” Leia asked excitedly. “I’m free to go?”

“Yeah, get outta here and enjoy your weekend,” he said, standing up. “I’m gonna process the rest of this in my office and send it off to the producer so he can get it to the network.”

“You mean you’re gonna swing by _Alderaan_ to see if Jyn’s still there so you can flirt with her some more?” Leia teased.

“Didn’t I tell you to ask out Ami first before you get all cheeky with me?” he retorted.

Her sly grin was almost Cheshire Cat-like.

Cassian’s jaw slackened. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me-“

“Obviously everyone on _Bombad_ is staying late for D-Day because their project is absolutely fucked, but we’re meeting for dinner and a movie tomorrow night.” Leia shut off her work station and slung her backpack over her shoulder in one cool, breezy motion. “Ball’s in your court now, _Andor_ ,” she smirked as she left Cassian in _Endor_ by himself.

It should have been expected that the youngster would find it in her to beat him to the punch, what with how naturally competitive she was, but Cassian still found himself surprised by how quickly she managed to buck up and ask Amilyn out.

_Ball’s in your court now, Andor._

He stopped at _Alderaan_ ’s door on his way back to his office and peered inside. The room was just as dark as it was this morning, but Jyn, for once, was not alone. Despite the fatigue clear in her eyes, she was dutifully playing back footage at the director’s command, going through shots as their producer documented the approved ones. Cassian attempted to walk away before anyone noticed his presence, but just as he turned away, he bumped into Amilyn.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” he cried out, extending his arms to catch anything that might fall out of Amilyn’s grip.

“No, no, it’s fine,” she said brightly, if a bit airily, and she regained her composure. “You done with your deliveries, or are you gonna suffer with the rest of us?”

He chuckled. “No, D-Day is over for us soon; I just need to send an email to our producer and he’ll send it off to the network whenever he’s done watching over that,” he said, pointing a thumb at _Alderaan_.

Amilyn pursed her lips. “Man, I’m so jealous- we had some curry delivered, so I’m here to alert everyone that the food’s arrived. Would much rather be home, though, and _not_ watching a bunch of grown-ass adults having meltdowns in front of their computers.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Including yourself?”

“ _Especially_ myself.”

Cassian was beginning to understand why Leia liked her so much.

“At least you have a fun day lined up for tomorrow,” he responded coolly, and he noticed how nicely the rising blush on her face complimented her wavy, forest-green hair.

Back at his office, Cassian had wrapped up everything he needed, and was about to message his producer. _One delivery down, one more to go for you_ , he typed shortly after sending out the official email with the location of the deliverables. He took a moment to lean back on his chair and looked at the knick-knacks around his office that he’d accumulated over the years. Soon, he would have a new office, a new view, and a new gang.

It was bittersweet, he had to admit.

Before he got too lost in his nostalgia, however, there was a knock at his door.

“Uh, come in,” he called out.

The door opened slowly, and Jyn peered inside.

“Hey,” she said, biting her lip, and Cassian immediately sat upright to force himself to focus on his own posture as opposed to anything about her, like her eyes, or her hair, or her pouty lips.

“What’s up? I thought you’d still be going through shots with your director,” he said casually, despite his mind ringing with the echoes of Leia’s competitive teasing.

_Ball’s in your court, Andor!_

“I was. But then Amilyn ratted me out.”

“Oh?”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “I told her I was fine, but then she told our producer that I hadn’t had lunch, so they kicked me out of _Alderaan_ so that I could eat.”

Cassian squinted. “And you’re not eating yet, because…?”

“I will soon, I promise, but I wanted to ask you something…” her voice trailed and her face reddened, and Cassian somehow managed to sit up even straighter.

“Yes?” he asked, nearly brimming with hope at her next words.

She hesitated, and Cassian noticed her tighten her grip on his doorknob just slightly, but he soon saw the fire in her eyes from earlier in the day as she mustered the courage to say: “One of my mentors had always said…you gotta take every chance. And the next chance. And the next. On and on, until you make it to the top, or the chances are spent.”

Cassian nodded; he couldn’t agree more.

“So, um, will you…” Jyn said sheepishly, and Cassian’s heart began to race. Was she about to ask him what he failed to ask her all these months?

 _Ask away,_ he almost wanted to tell her.

“Would you be willing to let me apply for your Editorial team on _Kessel Run_?” she blurted out.

Cassian gawked. He certainly wasn’t expecting her to say that when the news of his promotion was still fresh. But he had to admit, she was certainly getting a leg up on the game by being the first person to ask him for a position on the show.

 _Of course- why the hell would she ask you for a date when she was more concerned about finding another job?_ he thought.

Suddenly, he threw his head back and laughed heartily.

Indeed, he really _was_ a fool.

Jyn’s face turned a new shade of red.

“No, no, don’t be embarrassed,” he reassured her, dabbing tears from the corner of his eyes. “I’m just so surprised at how quick you are to pounce on it. But yes, email me your resume so we can interview you when the time comes.”

She nodded confidently as her blush faded. “Don’t treat me like a diversity hire, okay?” she teased.

“Jyn, this is the industry- if you get this job, it’s because you know me,” he teased back. “You’ll be a _nepotistic_ hire.”

It was finally Jyn’s turn to laugh, and his heart skipped a beat. His heart skipped a beat- he never made her laugh before, but his chest swelled with a bit of pride at this accomplishment.

“Awesome,” she replied wryly. “Glad we’re on the same page then.”

She was about to turn around and leave his office when, before he realized his mouth had even opened, he instinctively called out, “Wait!”

Time seemed to slow as Jyn turned back around to look at him again.

Jyn took her chance- it was time for Cassian to take his.

_Ball’s in your court, Andor._

Cassian swallowed the last of his reservations and took a deep breath.

“Would you like to go on a date with me sometime?” he finally asked.

Jyn was frozen in place, absolutely stunned.

But not for long.

She leaned towards him slightly. “Is this supposed to be in exchange for a job?”

His hands immediately reached for his hair as he tried once again to hide the redness in his ears, as though that would also deflect from the redness that had quickly spread across his face. “Honestly? I was so worried about not asking you out at all that I’d forgotten how bad it looks for me to ask you out _immediately_ after you asked me to interview you for a job.”

“Wow,” she said, arching a brow. “And to think this whole time I thought Leia was just fucking with me when she said you thought I was cute.”

Cassian’s eyes widened. She already _knew_?

He was going to have to exchange some words with Leia on Monday.

“I’ll have to think about it though,” Jyn then said.

His heart sank. He was sort of hoping for a much more positive response in spite of his crap timing. If anything, it was almost _laughable_ that he even had the slightest bit of hope that she would say “yes” right off the bat.

“Right. Yeah. No pressure- I’ll still interview you even if you reject me,” he chuckled nervously, berating himself for coming off as too obvious. But no matter how much he tried to laugh it off, she continued to stare at him rather blankly. _Why_ was she staring at him like that? How much of a loser did she think he was?

Now he was _really_ starting to regret asking her out.

“Ah, sorry,” she quickly backpedaled, shaking her head to regain her train of thought. “What I meant to say was: I’ll think about when and where to have it. The date, I mean.”

Cassian blinked. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah- I happen to think you’re cute, too, you know,” she retorted, her face finally revealing a shade of pink.

Cassian felt as though he could melt in his chair.

“Right…well…I should probably eat,” Jyn finally said, biting her lip again as her eyes drifted down towards the doorknob she was still gripping. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Good luck on D-Day.”

“Eh,” she shrugged. “It was shite at first but it got a hell of a lot better towards the end of it,” she said, pursing her lips and trying her best to hold back a smile, but it was quickly growing as she stepped back and shut the door, leaving Cassian to process what just happened.

When was the last time he felt this… _bubbly_? The feeling was both freeing and terrifying. He had to get his head out of the clouds and back down to Earth.

His phone buzzed.

 _Strange_ , Cassian thought as he checked his notifications. His producer shouldn’t need to be messaging him at this hour.

But it wasn’t his producer; Jyn had sent him a photo of her delivered curry, atop the lunch table just around the corner from his office.

Jyn Erso: Wanna go on that date now?

Cassian Andor: Really? At work? Over a single order of curry?

Jyn Erso: Two dogs shared a plate of spaghetti in a back alley and everyone called it ICONIC.

Cassian couldn’t help but chuckle. His thumbs were poised over his phone keyboard, ready to tap out a witty response, but-

_Unless you put in a hell of a lot more effort to make it work…_

He quickly pocketed his phone and grabbed his backpack.

Jyn was quietly scrolling through her phone at the lunch table as Cassian rounded the corner. Two sets of utensils rested atop napkins neatly placed on either side of the take-out container of curry, but not a single bite was taken of her food. It didn’t take long for her to sense his presence- she looked up and her hopeful, brilliant green eyes glimmered and shone under the much brighter lights of the lunch area.

In spite of her week-long fatigue, this small, simple gesture was Jyn’s own brand of effort to make things work.

 _Nothing that’s ever truly worth it is easy,_ Cassian reminded himself as he took a seat next to her and slid closer to close the gap between them. It was admirable how far Jyn had rolled with that philosophy, and it was only fair that he put in just as much of an effort to make things work between them.

_Ball’s in your court now, Andor._

Cassian raised a spoon and tilted it towards Jyn in an offering.

_Make it work._

Smiling even more beautifully than before, she picked up the other spoon and triumphantly clinked it against his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this! I really wanted to get it out of my system; the person I based this on is so charming that I hate it (but not really, it's a nice charm to bask in). Stay safe and healthy, everyone!
> 
> There's quite a bit of new jargon in this finale, but don't forget- you can [refer to this handy glossary](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1095927) for explanations on the following (in order of appearance) :  
> Deliverables  
> Screeners  
> Lock  
> Pilots (vs Series)  
> APC  
> Slate  
> Screenings  
> "Re-paint"  
> Background Artist ("bee-gee artist")  
> Motion Blur

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this hell of a tester fic! I hope [my glossary](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1095927) helped explain things more in-depth, but let me know if I need to explain anything any further so that I can tweak the list!


End file.
